Netflix’s new take on Osamu Tezuka’s classic Princess Knight (now called The Ribbon Hero) made a pretty big change to one of Sapphire’s most iconic traits: the whole “girl dressing as a boy” thing is gone.
Director Yuki Igarashi explained the decision in a recent interview. He said the original Sapphire worked as a kind of trickster who challenged rigid social norms by living as a woman dressed as a man. But he didn’t think that same concept would land the same way today.
“I didn’t think the original concept of a woman in men’s clothing could challenge modern values,” he said, “so I omitted that element and aimed instead to tell the story of a hero who fights while confronting reality within a larger society.”
In other words, the team decided that simply having a girl in men’s clothes and swinging a sword wouldn’t feel fresh or subversive anymore. Values around women have changed enough that carrying over the old setup felt pointless to them.
That shift also shaped the new character design. Early concepts apparently stayed closer to the original, including the big hat that was a big part of classic Sapphire’s look. Character concept artist Kei Mochizuki said they moved away from that.
“Sapphire in Princess Knight possesses both a girl’s heart and a boy’s heart, and because of that, her appearance dressed as a man with a large hat is a defining feature,” Mochizuki explained. For the new version, she wanted to focus on “liberation.” Once Sapphire is free of the old constraints, forcing the cross-dressing hat onto her didn’t make sense anymore.
Instead, the big visual symbol became a massive ribbon. Mochizuki said she wanted to highlight Sapphire’s strength, kindness, and sense of justice — things that go beyond gender. The ribbon was meant to express that she “simply shines as Sapphire.”
Igarashi admitted the huge ribbon surprised him at first, but the team eventually leaned into it. Where ribbons used to mostly signal cuteness, they figured it could also read as cool in a modern context.
The Ribbon Hero started streaming worldwide on Netflix on August 8. It’s less a straight adaptation and more a reimagining of Tezuka’s story for today’s audience. Whether fans buy the new direction or miss the original cross-dressing prince/princess setup is already becoming a talking point.